Family Support Policy Research

Reports

• These reports for the Building Strong Families (BSF) project, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, provide short-term impact results and review the study design and implementation.
• "Strengthening Unmarried Parents’ Relationships: The Early Impacts of Building Strong Families.” Robert G. Wood, Sheena McConnell, Quinn Moore, Andrew Clarkwest, and JoAnn Hsueh, May 2010. This report provides impacts of BSF on couples about 15 months after they applied for the program. Early impacts show that, when results are averaged across the eight individual programs included in the evaluation, BSF did not achieve its primary objective of improving the stability and quality of the couples’ relationships. Results varied across the eight programs with positive effects for the Oklahoma City BSF program and negative effects for the Baltimore program. Other programs had little or no effects on relationships. BSF had overall positive effects for African American couples—improving the quality of their relationships. Executive Summary.
• "Implementation of Eight Programs to Strengthen Unmarried Parent Families." M. Robin Dion, Sarah A. Avellar, and Elizabeth Clary, May 2010. This report documents the design and implementation of the eight BSF programs, reports on program services, analyzes characteristics of couples and programs that may affect participation, and describes experiences of couples in the program.
• "Strengthening Unmarried Parents’ Relationships: The Early Impacts of Building Strong Families: Technical Supplement." Robert G. Wood, Quinn Moore, Andrew Clarkwest, JoAnn Hsueh, and Sheena McConnell, May 2010. This technical supplement provides additional detail about research design, analytic methods, variable construction used for the 15-month analysis, and discussion of subgroup analysis. It also includes additional impact results not presented in the main report.
• "Understanding Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Caseloads After Passage of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005." LaDonna Pavetti, Linda Rosenberg, and Michelle Derr, September 2009. This paper examines how policy and structural changes states made in response to the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA) may influence the level and composition of the TANF caseload. It is based on Mathematica’s  50-state survey of diversion programs, as well as field visits to state and local welfare offices to study innovative strategies to increase the number of recipients participating in work activities. Changes in the total caseload between 2005 and 2008 are likely attributable to a number of factors that are not easy to disentangle. The report looks at the role of state policies to create solely state-funded programs, promote the use of other programs, expand assistance for working families, and strengthen family sanctions.
• “Sanctions and Time Limits in California’s Welfare Program.” Caroline Danielson and Deborah Reed, April 2009. California’s welfare program—the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program—provides cash assistance to needy families while helping them gain self-sufficiency. Toward this end, most adults receiving CalWORKs are required to work; they may also (with some restrictions) combine work with education or training. This study finds that the state’s caseload would be substantially lower, and its work participation rate significantly higher, if the state adopted stricter sanction policies for adults who fail to meet work requirements. Poverty among children in single-mother families in California would be not greatly affected if the state adopted a gradual or immediate grant-elimination sanction policy. However, the authors note that using their analysis it is not possible to predict what might happen to child poverty under grant-elimination policies during a prolonged recession.
• "Effects of Employment on Marriage: Evidence from a Randomized Study of the Job Corps Program." Arif Mamun, December 2008. This report explores the effects of employment and earnings on the likelihood of marriage for young economically disadvantaged men and women. The study exploits the change in employment resulting from random assignment to the Job Corps program to identify the effect of employment on the likelihood of marriage. The key finding of this study is that an increase in employment and earnings has positive effects on the likelihood of marriage for women, but has no significant effect for men.
• "Income Data for Policy Analysis: A Comparative Assessment of Eight Surveys." John L. Czajka and Gabrielle Denmead, December 2008. Income is a critical classification variable for policy-related analyses, and together with poverty status is often key in the development of public policy. Most federal household surveys collect some income data and provide measures of poverty status. Yet income is difficult to measure in household surveys, and poverty status depends not only on income but on how a family is defined, which differs across surveys. Mathematica conducted a comprehensive and systematic assessment of income data and their utility for policy-related analyses in eight major surveys: the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP); the Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS); the American Community Survey (ACS); the Household Component of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS); the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS); the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey Cost and Use files (MCBS); the Health and Retirement Study (HRS); and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The assessment focused on three issues: (1) quality and usability of each survey’s income and poverty data for policy-related analyses; (2) overall impact of different design and methodological approaches; and (3) specific design and processing choices that may be related to the quality and utility of income and poverty data in each survey. Detailed findings address not only the measurement of income and poverty but other survey features that affect estimates of income and its distribution.
• “A Study of States’ TANF Diversion Programs.” Linda Rosenberg, Michelle Derr, LaDonna Pavetti, Subuhi Asheer, Megan Hague Angus, Samina Sattar, and Jeffrey Max, December 2008. In response to higher effective work participation rates that followed the reauthorization of the TANF program in 2005, states added new policies and programs that divert eligible families from the TANF system. This report describes states’ policies on and experiences with diversion. Strategies included lump-sum payment programs, applicant work requirements, and temporary support programs. All but three states had implemented at least one diversion strategy. Thirty-five states had a lump-sum payment program, a net increase of six states from 2005. In 20 states, applicants completed a job search activity as a condition of their TANF eligibility; 19 other states required applicants to complete a TANF program orientation or an employment plan as a condition of eligibility. By spring 2008, nine states had implemented a temporary support program.

Journal Articles

• "Relationship Education for Unmarried Couples with Children: Parental Responses to the Building Strong Families Project." Robin Dion and Alan Hershey, Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy, April 2010. An implementation study of the Building Strong Families (BSF) programs indicates that many unmarried couples are interested in services to strengthen their relationships around the time of their child’s birth. More than 5,000 couples volunteered for the BSF study across eight states. Although couples report learning from and valuing the program, they also have many life challenges, and practitioners must be proactive in supporting ongoing participation. Results from a rigorous evaluation of the program’s impacts on family outcomes are forthcoming.
• "What Do We Know About the Link Between Marriage and Health?” Heather Koball, Emily Moiduddin, Jamila Henderson, Brian Goesling, and Melanie Besculides, Journal of Family Issues (web edition), March 2010. This special journal issue presents nine new studies on the relationship between marriage and health among African Americans. It discusses health disparities between African Americans and other racial and ethnic groups, offers an overview of African American marriage rates, and presents evidence for the marriage-health link in this population.
• "Minors’ Behavioral Responses to Parental Involvement Laws: Delaying Abortion Until Age 18." Silvie Colman and Ted Joyce, Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, June 2009. Research on the effect of laws mandating parental involvement in minors’ abortions has failed to examine an important behavioral response to such laws: Older teenagers may delay an abortion until age 18. For some, this may mean terminating a pregnancy after the first trimester. Using data on abortions in Texas from 1997 to 2003, analysis shows that in the four years after the law went into effect, the proportion of abortions obtained at age 18 increased by six percentage points among minors who conceived at age 17 years and eight months, and by 13 points among those who did so at 17 years and nine months. The second-trimester abortion rate of these groups combined increased by 21 percent.
• “Impacts of Abstinence Education on Teen Sexual Activity, Risk of Pregnancy, and Risk of Sexually Transmitted Diseases.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Christopher Trenholm, Barbara Devaney, Kenneth Fortson, Melissa Clark, Lisa Quay, and Justin Wheeler, March 2008. This paper examines the impacts of four abstinence-only education programs on adolescent sexual activity and risks of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Based on an experimental design, the impact analysis uses survey data collected in 2005 and early 2006 from more than 2,000 teens who had been randomly assigned to either a program group that was eligible to participate in one of the four programs or a control group that was not. The findings show no significant impact on teen sexual activity, no differences in rates of unprotected sex, and some impacts on knowledge of STDs and perceived effectiveness of condoms and birth control pills.
• "Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: The Uneven Economic Progress of TANF Recipients." Social Service Review, Robert G. Wood, Quinn Moore, and Anu Rangarajan, March 2008. This article investigates the long-term economic gains of current and former TANF recipients and explores the extent to which these recipients experience steady economic progress. Results suggest that recipients generally show economic progress but that there is considerable instability and heterogeneity of experience. Employment insecurity and poverty cycling are common even among the least disadvantaged TANF recipients and are particularly prevalent among those with low education levels, little work experience, and poor health.
• "Intergenerational Neighborhood-Type Mobility: Examining Differences Between Blacks and Whites." Thomas P. Vartanian, Page Walker Buck, and Philip Gleason, Housing Studies, September 2007. Using sibling data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics linked with U.S. Census data, the authors examine whether the quality of a person's childhood neighborhood influences where one resides as an adult. Descriptively, the study finds that childhood neighborhood conditions of black and white children are vastly different. Few whites live in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods, and few blacks live in the most advantaged neighborhoods. Using a sibling fixed effects regression model, the authors find that living in a disadvantaged neighborhood as a child negatively influences the quality of the neighborhood one lives in as an adult. These neighborhood effects are particularly strong among children who grow up in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Issue Briefs

• “Fostering Effective Grassroots Partnerships: Lessons from Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.” Pam Winston, March 2010. A new issue brief highlights themes and recommendations from recent Mathematica studies of faith-based and community initiatives. The Faith-Based and Community Initiative established in 2001 and the Charitable Choice provisions of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act brought new attention and controversy to the role of faith-based organizations in providing social services to Americans. The brief explores how social service organizations and faith-based and secular groups might work together moving forward.
• “Teaching Self-Sufficiency Through Home Visitation and Life Skills Education.” Trends in Family Programs and Policy, Issue Brief #3. Alicia Meckstroth, Andrew Burwick, Quinn Moore, and Michael Ponza, July 2009. To address challenges faced by hard-to-employ TANF clients, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension, in partnership with the Nebraska Health and Human Services System, operated the Building Nebraska Families (BNF) program from 2002 to 2005. The initiative combined intensive home visitation and life skills education to prepare high-risk TANF clients in rural Nebraska to succeed in the world of work and improve their families’ well-being. This issue brief notes significant impacts for the very hard-to-employ. BNF was effective in increasing employment and earnings as well as reducing poverty for this group.
• A new series of practice briefs helps state and local officials think about strategies to  meet federal work participation requirements in their TANF programs. The briefs draw on information gathered from case studies of nine programs and describe approaches states and local offices have adopted that might be of interest to other program administrators.
• "Providing Paid Employment Opportunities for TANF Participants Engaged in Vocational Education Programs: Examples from Denver, Colorado; Kentucky; and California." Strategies for Increasing TANF Work Participation Rates, Brief #1. Ann Person, LaDonna Pavetti, and Jeffrey Max, December 2008. This brief profiles three programs, two statewide and one local, that provide work opportunities to TANF recipients participating in vocational education. The programs combine vocational education and paid work, a strategy that allows recipients to further their education while reinforcing the emphasis of the TANF program on encouraging recipients to engage in work as quickly as possible.
• "Using Data to Monitor and Improve the Work Participation of TANF Recipients: Examples from New York City and Utah." Strategies for Increasing TANF Work Participation Rates, Brief #2. Jeffrey Max and Gretchen Kirby, December 2008. This brief profiles two programs, one statewide and one local, for analyzing, reporting, and using data to hold case managers and administrators accountable for increasing the work participation of TANF recipients. The selected strategies use data to keep staff informed about progress toward participation goals and allow program managers to address nonparticipation quickly.
• "Providing Unpaid Work Experience Opportunities for TANF Recipients: Examples from Erie County, New York; Montana; and Hamilton County, Ohio." Strategies for Increasing TANF Work Participation Rates, Brief #3. Michelle Derr, December 2008. This brief profiles three work experience programs that engage nearly all work-ready TANF recipients in unpaid work activities, either alone or in conjunction with education and training. Unpaid work experience is designed to mirror regular employment in the paid labor market. TANF recipients are assigned to entry-level jobs at government offices, nonprofit agencies, educational institutions, or for-profit businesses, creating an immediate attachment to the labor market. Rather than earning an hourly wage, recipients receive their TANF grant and food stamp benefits in exchange for the hours they work. In addition to helping meet TANF work requirements, these programs help recipients gain job skills and acclimate to a regular work schedule.
• "Achieving Higher TANF Work Participation Rates: Case Studies from Maryland and Utah." Strategies for Increasing TANF Work Participation Rates, Brief #4. Jacqueline Kauff and Michelle Derr, December 2008. Both Maryland and Utah more than doubled their state TANF work participation rates within a one-year period. Maryland’s rate increased from 20.5 percent in 2005 to 44.5 percent in 2006. Utah’s rate increased from 16 percent in October 2006 to 45.5 percent in October 2007. Both adopted a philosophy of universal engagement, a performance monitoring system, work experience and subsidized employment programs, and solely state-funded programs for subgroups of recipients.
• "Strategies for Increasing TANF Work Participation Rates: Summary Report." Strategies for Increasing TANF Work Participation Rates, Brief #5. LaDonna Pavetti, Jacqueline Kauff, Michelle Derr, Jeffrey Max, Ann Person, and Gretchen Kirby, December 2008. This brief summarizes the other briefs in this series and includes some additional material. It describes four broad strategies: (1) new work opportunities for TANF recipients; (2) administrative strategies; (3) TANF policy changes; and (4) creation of new programs.

Other

• "Promising Antipoverty Strategies for Families." Maria Cancian, Daniel R. Meyer, and Deborah Reed, April 2010. This paper reviews family structure, its relationship to employment, and the recession’s impact on poor families. To reduce poverty, the report proposes policies that help parents balance work and caretaking, and support their children.
• “Family Structure, Childbearing, and Parental Employment: Implications for the Level and Trend in Poverty.” Maria Cancian and Deborah Reed, September 2009. In Changing Poverty, Changing Policies. Poverty declined significantly in the decade after the War on Poverty, yet the official poverty rate has never fallen below its 1973 level and remains higher than the rates in many other advanced economies. The authors document how economic, social, demographic, and public policy changes since the early 1970s have altered who is poor and where antipoverty initiatives have kept pace or fallen behind, examining how family structure changes in particular have affected poverty. They note the importance of efforts to support parents’ employment.
• "The Marriage Measures Guide of State-Level Statistics." Brian Goesling, Robert G. Wood, Carol Razafindrakoto, and Jamila Henderson, March 2008. In the past decade, policymakers and researchers have become increasingly interested in social programs that promote and support healthy marriages. Drawing on data from several sources, the guide provides a broad range of state-level statistical information that policymakers and marriage program operators can use to assess the characteristics and needs of their state populations. The guide can be used to identify high-priority target populations and to inform decisions about design and implementation of healthy marriage programs.
• "Federal Policy Efforts to Improve Outcomes Among Disadvantaged Families by Supporting Marriage and Family Stability." M. Robin Dion and Alan J. Hawkins, October 2007. In Handbook of Families and Poverty. There is broad consensus that family structure is inextricably linked with poverty and the well-being of children. This paper reviews the connections between poverty, family structure, and child well-being; explains the rationale for a new policy strategy focused on intervening more directly at the level of family structure, and describes several major federal initiatives under way to develop and test the new strategies.
• "Welfare-to-Work Transitions for Parents of Infants: Employment and Child-Care Policy Implementation in Eight Communities." Christine Ross and Gretchen Kirby, 2006. In From Welfare to Child Care: What Happens to Young Children When Mothers Exchange Welfare for Work. Nearly half the states have used the flexibility provided under federal welfare reform law to require parents of infants to work as a condition of receiving benefits, and nearly all states require teenage parents to return to school soon after the birth of a child. Mathematica's implementation study examined the policy environment (work and school requirements) and practical considerations (child-care and supportive services) that influence the timing and ease of the transition from welfare to work or school for parents of infants. The study was based on staff interviews and focus groups with key informants in eight communities. Researchers found that case managers and program administrators did not view parents of infants as a group that had categorical needs substantially different from those of the broader TANF population and that TANF policies regarding work requirements, sanctions, and time limits were applied in the same way. In contrast, teenage parents were viewed as a subgroup with special needs requiring comprehensive services and support.